The Calming Properties of French Toast

The alarm chirped relentlessly. House groaned and rolled over. Oddly, that didn't stop the alarm from yelling into the otherwise quiet morning. "Turn it off," he mumbled incoherently, but nothing happened. "Oh for..." he turned to yell at Cuddy, but she wasn't there. "Crap." He slammed his hand down on the annoying clock then fell back onto his pillow.

It took him a good ten minutes to realize Cuddy should have been there. He knew something was wrong because if she had been there in bed with him, she would have turned off the alarm clock and started pestering him until he woke up. It drove him crazy, and he refused to admit it even to himself, but he sort of missed it a little; the way she'd start by kissing him gently, then shaking his arm, then tugging on his ear, then getting really close and yelling into his ear. That was the bit that usually prompted him into action. Left to his own devices it was another ten minutes before he got up and went to find her.

He shuffled down the hallway in his robe and slippers blissfully unaware that today was his wedding day. It usually took about a half hour and two cups of coffee before he even knew what month it was. Knowing the day at this early hour was just beyond his realm of ability.

He found her in the first place he looked. She was curled up in her desk chair, her head resting on the hard wood of the antique desk her father had gotten her as a house warming gift when she got the job running PPTH and bought the house they now lived in together.

For a moment he thought he should let her sleep, but then he remembered all the times she should have let him sleep and didn't, and he blew in her ear. She swatted her hand in her sleep. "Wakey Wakey," he said, flicking her ear lightly.

"What happened?" She jumped up and was suddenly alert.

"Nothing, yet." House smiled at her.

Cuddy looked around and realized she'd fallen asleep trying to write her vows. House glanced over her shoulder quickly, but all he could make out where some elaborate doodles and a lot of scratched out words. "The wedding."

"Glad you remembered." House would have loved it if she forgot. He'd never let her live it down.

"What time is it?" She looked around for a clock.

"Relax. We've got plenty of time." House wanted breakfast.

"YOU'VE got plenty of time. All you have to do is show up. I've got to get my hair and makeup done, and get dressed and…"

"Relax." House grabbed her head before it exploded, and kissed it carefully. "I'll make you some French Toast." She had fallen in love with his ooey gooey French Toast the first time he'd made it for her, and now called it his specialty. Although he was capable of cooking, he claimed it was the only thing he could make.

Cuddy followed him into the kitchen. He wasn't sure he was thrilled about it. She was practically spastic, muttering to herself about all the things she had to do, and peering over his shoulder now and then because she needed something to focus on.

"Sit down!" House pointed the spatula toward a chair.

"I should call Lo," Cuddy headed for the phone but House blocked her with his cane.

"I said sit down!" He could be very authoritative when he put his mind to it.

"Okay," she said as if he were the one freaking out. She sat, afraid to say anything, while he finished cooking.

"We will sit down and have a nice breakfast. Then you will drop me off at Wilson's on your way to Lo's den of whatever." House had never been to Lo's. He was too afraid of what he might find there. He'd had this nightmare once, where Cuddy had been simply bait, and she lured him down to Lo's basement dungeon where he was tortured and used to satisfy their vast appetites...okay, so it wasn't exactly a nightmare, but he still wasn't going to ever set foot in Lo's house, just in case.

"Yes, fine." Cuddy dove into her French Toast as though she hadn't eaten in weeks. House watched for an amused moment before slowing her down.

"We have plenty of time. The wedding isn't until this afternoon."

"I haven't even finished my vows." She'd been obsessing over these vows for weeks now. Lo had the wedding under control. It was so under control that it left Cuddy with nothing to do. Lo insisted that all she had to do was sit back and relax, that this was Lo's gift to her. But Cuddy was not the sit back and relax type, and since her only task was to write her vows and go to dress fittings, she had her dress fitted at least once a week and had become obsessed with writing the perfect vows.

"So?" House shrugged.

"So? House, have you given any thought to what you're going to say?" The words came out slightly muffled through the brown sugar covered goodness of the French Toast.

"Not really," House replied honestly. He knew that was going to piss her off, and he felt a little guilty pissing her off today of all days, so he elaborated. "I'm just going to say how I feel. I don't need to prepare that. When the moment comes, the words will come."

Cuddy looked at him as if he'd grown a second head that had one fat hair growing out the top of it's third eye and a mouth that was on sideways. "That's very Zen of you." House was anything but Zen.

"Lazy is the new Zen now?" House nodded, pleased with this information. He could do lazy.

"House..." She really couldn't deal with him today. Any other day, fine, she'd love to banter away, but today, just no.

House realized this, and became serious. "Cuddy, I don't care what you say to me up there, so long as at the end of it, you say 'I do'. You can call me a jerk a bastard a lazy ass miser who makes everyone around him miserable just because he can. I don't care. Just so long as it ends with you marrying me."

Cuddy was about to cry. That was the sweetest thing he'd ever said to her. "I just want it to be perfect."

"I know. So just look into my eyes and say whatever comes into your head."

"Are you sure you want me to do that?" She smiled, but it was still a nervous smile.

"I am absolutely certain." And he meant it. House could care less if she told him the truth, if she pointed out all the horrible things about him that he already knew but just didn't care enough to change. As long as she didn't change her mind and leave him at the alter.

"I'm not like you House. I don't improvise." Every step of her career had been carefully planned, every choice she'd ever made had been well thought out. She wasn't a spur of the moment kind of person, though, sometimes she thought it might be nice if she could be.

"Do it anyway." House began to clear the table. It took him a moment to realize she hadn't asked him to and that it was a warning sign. He was being domesticated. In horror, House slammed the last of the dishes into the sink and stormed toward the door. "We'd better get going."

"But you said we had plenty of time." Cuddy walked over and started rinsing the dishes. She was going to end up doing it eventually anyway.

"Plenty of time? Have you looked in a mirror today? It's going to take hours, and a team of highly trained professionals to get you looking presentable enough to marry me." He ducked as a sponge went whizzing past his head. "That didn't help." He dragged her away from the sink and out the front door.